


so i say to you, come home

by disarmed



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22222978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disarmed/pseuds/disarmed
Summary: 'Hey, Elena, so -- while I was in the shower Damon pulled back the curtain, told me I was being a selfish bastard, and that I should share you. What do you think?' No, it just doesn't work for Stefan, sorry. Either way, Damon's going to try and make it work, whether Stefan likes it or not.
Relationships: Damon Salvatore/Stefan Salvatore, Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore, Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore/Stefan Salvatore, Elena Gilbert/Stefan Salvatore
Comments: 3
Kudos: 73





	so i say to you, come home

**Author's Note:**

> in an effort to maintain older fandom works from when lj lived (rip), i'm cross-posting them here. warnings: mild mentions/implications of incest, threesomes, some violence and offensive language.

++  
  
  
It had started just as every other romance started.  
  
With a boy and a girl.  
  
Except in Elena's book there was one more boy (a very _dangerous_ one), vampires, werewolves, witches and warlocks, doppelgangers and Originals and death and -- well. Sometimes she thinks that if her life were a book no one would read it because she sounded _insane_. But just as Stefan had her loving him from Day One, Damon played on her mind just as much, no matter what. He curled around her thoughts like his tendrils of fog coiled around her ankles while she sat on her porch, oblivious to the mist until it was upon her. She smiles dryly every time she thinks about it. He doesn't play the fog card much now, unless he's had a particularly horrendous day or he feels the need to remind them that he's still dangerous.  
  
He did many bad things that Elena still hasn't forgotten, but he's done many good things in an attempt to make it up to her, and she can't forget those, either.  
  
++  
  
She walks into the Boarding house one afternoon to find the two of them going at, yelling and shoving and getting right under each other's noses.  
  
"Hey," she says loudly, dropping her bag and moving between them, "what's going on?"  
  
Damon doesn't give her a second glance except to move her out of the way with a brush of his arm. Elena is incredibly miffed by this, and when she tries to ask what's wrong again Stefan yells over her and shoves Damon in the shoulder -- _hard._ Furious, Elena gives them both a shove and stomps up the stairs, choosing to lay on Stefan's bed and read a book from one of the piles. Not five minutes later Stefan is in the doorway.  
  
"I'm--"  
  
Damon is suddenly behind him. " _We're_ sorry." Stefan is silent for a moment before nodding. Elena raises her brows at both of them.  
  
"We just--"  
  
"Stefan stole my CDs," supplies Damon, as helpfully as he can manage.  
  
Stefan sighs and turns to look at Damon in disgust, "how can I steal them if they were _mine_ to begin with, Damon? Besides, when did you ever listen to Bach?"  
  
Damon narrows his eyes. "When did you start acting like a prissy little girl?" He pauses, "oh wait, you always _have._ "  
  
"We're going to resort to this, are we?" Stefan deadpans, "this whole, bickering thing where you try to rile me up and make me snap?"  
  
"Is _that_ what we're doing?" Damon makes a surprised expression.  
  
Neither of them notice Elena get up and walk across the room. Stefan is in the middle of poking his finger into Damon's chest when she slams the door shut.  
  
++  
  
"You know what would be _super_ amounts of fun?" Damon asks one morning while Stefan and Elena are having sex. He appears out of nowhere, suddenly on the end of the bed, and Stefan shuts his eyes tight and rolls off of Elena tiredly. This has happened far too many times for it to be even remotely amusing. No -- wait. It wasn't _ever_ remotely amusing.  
  
Elena sits up, furious, clutching the sheets to her chest. " _What?_ "  
  
Damon waggles his eyebrows. "You should let me join you."  
  
She looks around, finds the nearest object (it happens to be Stefan's lamp) and closes her hand around it. With an entirely too-calm expression, she tosses it (cord and all) at Damon's head. He misses it easily and watches it shatter on the floor.  
  
He shrugs. "Your aim's definitely getting better." He hops up, smiling down at them. "We'll see what you say the next time I ask."  
  
This time, Stefan manages to clip him in the shoulder with his cell phone.  
  
++  
  
There's something to do with the Founding Families that they're all invited too, and Elena finds a lovely, deep purple dress to wear and does her hair up. Stefan catches her hand and pulls her close when she opens the door to let him in, telling her she looks beautiful as he hands her a rose. Her smile is bright.  
  
They're on the steps of the Lockwood mansion when Damon appears out of nowhere and links his arm into Elena's free one, just in time for them to walk in. There's a hush as people stare, _'a Salvatore on each arm,'_ and Elena doesn't know what to do. She contemplates wrenching her arm from Damon's and smacking him clear across the face, except he leans down and whispers into her ear, "I could _eat_ you up in that dress." Then he's stealing her hand and placing his lips to her knuckles and moving off into the throng of people.  
  
Elena smiles off the stares as Stefan leads her to where Caroline and Tyler are standing with bemused looks. There's a flush to Elena's whole body and she's different flavors of horrified, embarrassed and extremely aroused. When Caroline offers her a champagne flute she downs the whole thing in possibly two minutes flat. It doesn't help with the flush, but it certainly helps with other things.  
  
She waits for Stefan to say something appropriate to this situation, but all he does is rub her lower back with his hand and ask Tyler how things are. When she glances up into his face there's something she can't quite place. She's not sure she wants to.  
  
++  
  
That night, when Stefan throws her over his shoulder and speeds to his room, they have the _best_ sex they've _ever_ had.  
  
++  
  
There's this terrible incident involving a werewolf that is entirely too close for comfort. It comes down to this: Damon is himself and manages to piss off the wrong person, who turns out to be a werewolf and decides to make Damon his next chew toy. Well, it gets close enough to rake Damon's back with it's claws, but then he somehow managed to deflect the teeth and make his way home. (The whole thing is a bit of a blur and Damon doesn't elaborate on it. Stefan has a serious suspicion that Damon's ego is seriously bruised and that's why he won't tell them the full story.)  
  
But he watches as Elena cleans the wounds rather frantically, eyebrows knitted together as Damon winces. They may not be fatal, but gouges from a werewolf take a little bit more healing than normal.  
  
++  
  
Later, when Damon has tasted his revenge, mashing wolvesbayne into his eyes and then putting the guy's head through a wall, he tells both Stefan and Elena that the only reason they got into a fight was because they were at the Grill, and the guy had called Elena a _'hot piece of ass he'd like to tap.'_ He tells them this while they're in bed together, the sheets pulled around them because Damon chose an _opportune_ moment to come in unannounced, rather drunk.  
  
Elena is two parts disbelieving and three parts flattered, and she presses her lips fleetingly to Damon's cheek and says, "don't ever be that _stupid_ and heroic again," before slipping carefully back in beside Stefan.  
  
It doesn't occur to either brother until after it's happened that Elena was almost rather naked when she did it.  
  
++  
  
Stefan doesn't like to think Damon is ever right about anything. (Though he has been on far too many occasions and Stefan isn't particularly fond of remembering it.) But when Damon tells him that he's being selfish with Elena he can't help the niggling in the back of his mind that just maybe -- maybe --- Elena wants more than just him. He isn't sure how to bring it up, not to her at least, because the way Damon told him wasn't particularly something he feels like vocalizing. _'Hey, Elena, so -- while I was in the shower Damon pulled back the curtain and told me I was being a selfish bastard and that I should share you, what do you think?'_ No, it just doesn't work for him, sorry.  
  
So he keeps quiet for a few days and just watches.  
  
++  
  
They end up hosting a movie night, and Damon is _handfuls_ of cheerful and invites Bonnie and Luka, Tyler and Jeremy and Caroline -- Stefan has to say gently that _'maybe Jenna and Alaric have other plans tonight, I think Elena said?'_ He even goes out and buys the popcorn and the M&Ms and Skittles, along with the fizzy drink that he tosses at everyone and says, "sorry kids, the scotch is for me." He even lets the girls pick the first film, which is quite probably one of the most generous things he's ever let anyone done, and they all stare at him like maybe he's insane.  
  
Maybe he is, Stefan isn't sure, but either way they end up watching _The Craft_ and it isn't horrifically awful, and then there's a big argument on what to watch next, and _Edward Scissorhands_ seems to be the winning DVD case that comes out from the scuffle unharmed. Halfway through, after Damon has graciously made some more popcorn, he comes back to find Caroline occupying his seat, attempting to keep the guilty expression off her face as Tyler leans into her. He doesn't do much about it, except for lift Elena's head up (Stefan got her feet this time, in her blue polka dot socks which he find highly endearing) and place it upon his lap as he sits down.  
  
She doesn't make one sound of discomfort or disagreement, just shuffles around a bit to get comfortable. Damon doesn't even look over and offer his brother a satisfactory grin or smug wink.  
  
Stefan isn't entirely too sure what to make of it all.  
  
++  
  
Elena wakes one morning and Stefan is gone, but there's a note by the bed that says he'll be back soon, he'll see her later. She dresses lazily and trots downstairs to find Damon in the kitchen. He's got his back to her while fiddling in the cupboards, but there's a cup of coffee on the table, and another cup waiting by the kettle. Presuming the full, steaming one on the table is for her, she picks it up and takes a rather generous gulp. Damon turns around with an expression that is both parts amused and guilty just as Elena's eyes widen and she spits out the mouthful she's just taken across the table. She retches, and then shoves past him to get to the sink and throw water into her mouth.  
  
Damon takes the coffee she tasted and sips at it, rolling his eyes. Curiosity always killed the humans.  
  
"What the hell was _that_?" Elena asks angrily as she wipes her mouth, looking a little pale.  
  
"Coffee," he deadpans, " _my_ coffee. _Yours_ is waiting to be made." He gestures to the mug by the kettle.  
  
Elena looks at his mug as if it might come across the room and force itself down her throat. "That is _not_ coffee."  
  
Damon rolls his eyes. "That _is_ coffee, along with some yummy housewife and a shot of brandy." Elena is silent for a moment before turning back to the sink and vomiting up what little was in her stomach. Damon goes and places a hand on her back, crinkling his nose as he holds her hair back. "Seriously," he tells her, "how many times have I told you not to touch things that aren't yours?" He hands her a cloth and she wipes her mouth after cleaning the sink. She gives him a foul look. "Don't look at me like that," he says, eyebrow raised, "I didn't come down here grabbing random cups of coffee at my pleasure without seeing who they belonged to."  
  
"Just-- shut up, Damon."  
  
He hides his smile by walking over to the kettle and pouring her a cup of clean coffee. "Two sugars?" He asks, although he already knows, and adds cream, not milk.  
  
She takes it warily, sniffs and then sips. She glances up, "thank you."  
  
His smile makes her duck her head and bite her lip.  
  
++  
  
Isobel comes back to town.  
  
Much to everyone's displeasure, that is. She wants to talk to Elena, and immediately. Stefan is caught up with Caroline at the time of the meeting and so Damon goes along. He doesn't mind, not really, because there was nothing on schedule that day except to mess with the Council some more and attempt to wheedle his way into Stefan and Elena's bed. The latter is pretty much right here in his lap.  
  
Isobel requests he stay away from them while they talked, but Damon just scoffs and stands beside Elena with his arms crossed. It's almost ten o'clock at night in the middle of Mystic Falls; like hell he's leaving Elena alone either her cold hearted vampire mother.  
  
"Just talk, Elvira."  
  
Isobel looks highly unimpressed (with Damon, with his comment, with everything -- whatever), but then she realizes she isn't dealing with Stefan and takes what she's given. "I want you to stop seeing the Salvatore brothers." Is the first thing out of her mouth. Elena doesn't look too surprised. Although Isobel can't get rid of Damon, she certainly talks as if he isn't there for at least a good twenty minutes, and it's not until she says coldly, "you're not exactly the daughter I hoped for," that Damon opens his mouth.  
  
"Well you're not exactly the role model mother of the year, are you?" He says with detachment, "neither were you a particularly _decent_ human being if I remember rightly." His eyes search her face as she glares at him, silently challenging. His voice turns to liquid, mocking silk. "How is Ric, anyway, have you talked to him yet, your _husband_ _?_ " He smiles dangerously, even as he feels Elena's hand curling around the sleeve of his jacket, tugging. "I'd be very careful if I were you Isobel; you're not important enough for anyone to really miss should something... _unfortunate_ happen." He smiles darkly at her before wrapping his arm around Elena's waist and walking her briskly away.  
  
She's crying even as she walks, but she won't give the satisfaction to the woman behind them that she's doing such a thing, so she waits until they're at the car before leaning heavily into Damon's side and crying heavily. He pulls her into his arms and holds her, soothing, patiently, as she cries. Eventually, she pulls away and he lets her go, and she ducks her head and gets into the car and looks out the window the whole time.  
  
She asks to stay at the Boarding house, and he tells her she _never_ has to ask.  
  
++  
  
They walk slowly to across the lawn and when they get to the door Elena pauses. She turns to look at him, with a face full of emotion that Damon just can't quite grasp, and the next thing he knows is she's kissing him, chaste and pretty; more than once. She's murmuring against his lips, _'I can't not, I just--'_ and Damon holds her face in his hands and revels in this moment.  
  
Stefan opens the door.  
  
Damon waits for her to jump away from him, claim her apologies, that she didn't mean it. All she does is look and Stefan and say, "we both knew it was coming."  
  
Damon feels a little out of the loop. Have they talked about this?  
  
Stefan just nods. "I know."  
  
They have totally talked about this.  
  
++  
  
Damon's not quite sure where they all stand, except Elena has this affection for him that he doesn't want to ever lose. She kisses him quick as she leaves, comes in and out, squeezes his arm and bumps her hip into his when they're standing in the kitchen together. She kisses him when Stefan is watching, and when Stefan isn't, and he feels like asking and questioning and prying but he doesn't.  
  
++  
  
Stefan finds himself cornered in the shower again. "Damon, seriously -- I'm -- _God_." He shuts the shower off and lets Damon pass him a towel. "You've got to stop doing that."  
  
Damon narrows his eyes. "What are you and Elena up to?"  
  
Stefan blinks. "Damon, I'm in the shower _alone._ "  
  
Damon makes a disgusted face and shakes his hand, "yes, I know _that_. I mean -- what are you and Elena up to. She's kissing me, Stefan, surely you can't be that mentally damaged to pretend _not_ to see it."  
  
Stefan shrugs, "she feels something for you." He gives his brother a sideways look. "We both do."  
  
It is entirely possible that Damon's eyebrows shoot into his hairline. Then his lips form a lecherous grin. "Aren't I supposed to be the dark and dangerous brother that leads you astray into incestuous scandal?"  
  
"You've done that before," remarks Stefan dryly. "I'm not too surprised to be the one doing it now. Okay, maybe I am." He pauses. "We want this to work. Elena wants this to work, and I-- _I'd_ like us to work too." He places a hand on his brother's shoulder, gives it a gentle squeeze. "Think about it Damon."  
  
++  
  
Stefan and Elena are just getting frisky the next night when Stefan catches sight of Damon leaning in the doorway. He raises a brow and Elena turns, head over her shoulder to look back at him. Damon waggles his fingers at her.  
  
"Well?" She asks after a moment.  
  
Damon blinks. "Well what?"  
  
Elena looks at him expectantly. "You said, 'we'll see what you say the next time I ask.' So ask."  
  
"What if I don't feel like doing the asking." He walks over with a certain demeanor that makes Elena's eyes darken.  
  
"Get into bed, Damon," she says instead, and flicks her hair out of her face. He slowly starts to take off his shirt.  
  
Stefan groans. "Seriously, Damon? I'm trying to get some and you're taking your sweet time?" It sends them all into peels of laughter, and then Damon is naked and pressed against them, lips on Elena's shoulder and fingers on his brother's hip.  
  
++  
  
A week or so later Stefan and Elena are drafting out English essays, sprawled out on the floor in the living room with the television playing quietly behind them. Stefan is reading out quotes from Macbeth while Elena jots them down on her paper, highlights and underlines. Her copy is old and mangled, borrowed from the school with her name in blue ink beneath many, many others, many, many years. She could probably count the swear words and love hearts on every page from beginning to end, her book is that tattered and worn.  
  
"Could you find something from Lady Macbeth for me?" Elena asks as she searches for a pen in a different color, "and preferably not, _'out damned spot, out?'_ " Unable to find one, she snatches Stefan's. He rolls his eyes.  
  
"Why Lady Macbeth?" He asks, looking for another pen.  
  
Her eyebrows furrow as she reads over her notes. "I'm trying to focus my character study on her, not just Macbeth."  
  
Stefan is silent for a moment as he flips through pages, "why not Macbeth?"  
  
Elena's response is an aggravated sigh. "He had so many times to redeem himself, to stop all the evil things he was doing but he didn't. He stopped after everything he'd done and thought, 'oh well, I've done all this, I might as well just keep going.'"  
  
"And that doesn't intrigue you?"  
  
Damon's entrance into the conversation is a sly one as he slips in from around the hall. Elena and Stefan look up as he comes to sit down on the couch and watch them. He looks particularly well dressed, Elena notes, and wonders if he's been playing his little games with the council. She thinks back to this morning and can't remember him telling her. She focuses on the question at hand.  
  
"I'd be lying if I said it didn't," she says after a moment, and Damon's eyes light up with the prospect of a win, "but then there's the fact he killed off half the cast in the play and continued to be greedy, isn't there?" She pauses, "that's not particularly something I find attractive in a man." There's a light humor to her tone, attempting to keep an argument at bay as she sees Damon's bristled reaction to her previous mention.  
  
Damon smirks. "I'm sure I can show you something attractive in a man."  
  
From the floor, Stefan idly highlights a passage. "I'm sure I already have."  
  
Elena laughs quietly and Damon glares. She understands Damon may have a little more sympathy for Macbeth, she doesn't like to focus on the parallels of the two, but if she had to... 'Repentant' fits more into Damon's character than Macbeth's. She wouldn't be here, with him, with them, if it wasn't.  
  
Damon stands, obviously unimpressed with the turn of conversation and says, "I always preferred _Othello_ , anyway." At Elena's look of confusion and disbelief he pauses, allowing his face to soften as he looks back at her. "'If it were now to die, 'twere now to be most happy, for I fear, my soul hath her content so absolute, that not another comfort like to this, succeeds in unknown fate.''  
  
He strolls off, as quietly as he came in, but Elena can't help the blush that threatens to color her cheeks.  
  
++  
  
Elena is on her phone to Jeremy one evening outside the Boarding House. She's strolling around the front of the house, allowing him to rant about his current issues with Jenna and Ric. _'It's not like she's letting a chick have a key to the house for me to find naked in the kitchen, it's Alaric, you know? I don't want to see another guy's junk. I get it was a mistake but seriously.'_ She's just about to hang up when she shivers and feels the cold descend. Once she's clicked off she looks down and realizes there is fog curled around her ankles where there previously was none.  
  
She crosses her arms. "Seriously, Damon, I get that you're dangerous and scary." When there's no response she pulls her jacket closer about her body and frowns. "When was the last time you even used the whole, fog trick thing? How bad a day did you have?"  
  
He comes out of the mist after a moment, looking a bit put out. "You don't like it?" He looks around and lets his fingers drift through it.  
  
Elena frowns. "What's wrong?"  
  
Damon sighs. "Bad day at the office."  
  
She takes that to be council meetings. "What happened, did Mrs. Lockwood serve you vervain tea?"  
  
He grimaces. "If that came next I wouldn't be surprised." He narrows his eyes at nothing in particular. "There's this strange, sleazy looking guy who's joined, says he's distantly related to the Fells. Knows about vampires and is utterly appalled." He waves his hand dramatically. "He's almost as charming as myself."  
  
Elena laughs. "You don't like him."  
  
Damon makes a face. "Something strange about him."  
  
She rolls her eyes and turns around, moving back towards the front door, "come on, drop the fog, I'll warm you up a blood bag for dinner."  
  
From behind her, he makes a startled gasp, "for me? You wouldn't." She smiles, and after a moment there's the -- "you could just open a vein..."  
  
She waves her hand in a good imitation of his own dramatic flick off.  
  
++  
  
"Damon told me I had a nice ass today," Stefan comments idly as he and Elena watch _Friends_ re-runs at her house.  
  
"Hmmmm?" Elena responds, turning to look at him. "That's because you do."  
  
"Since when did Damon say--"  
  
"Maybe," Elena cuts him off with a kiss, "you should focus more on what Damon does than what he actually says."  
  
Stefan is silent for a moment. Elena raises a brow and he nods. He decides not to mention Damon gave his ass a pretty firm smack afterwards.  
  
++  
  
Stefan doesn't come back from one of his less-frequent hunting trips one night a few weeks later and it puts both her and Damon at unease. They're in bed (so they moved into Damon's room, sue them, but he had the bigger bed) with Elena curled up into his side, listening to the heavy rain fall on the roof. It's a cold night; she snuggles deeper into Damon's side, playing her fingers across his stomach absently.  
  
"He should have been back by now." Damon's silence makes her look up. It's dark in the room, but a brief flash of lightening spills in and shows Damon's terse expression.  
  
Elena realizes she should be worried.  
  
++  
  
She doesn't know how it happened (she doesn't really need to, not after Katherine and the Originals and every other thing that happened in Mystic Falls) but Stefan managed to get abducted by some particularly power-hungry group of vampires, intent on taking down the Council and running the town for themselves. (Alaric is a very good snoop, it would seem.) They're a day behind on their rescue scheme, which is one day too late for Elena. She threatens to go after them herself if they don't move quick enough.  
  
Damon's solution? He locks her in Stefan's bedroom for an hour.  
  
When he finally lets her out she tries to smack him across the face, he catches her hand and raises a brow, and then tells her they have a plan. She sticks her nose in the air and brushes past him, choosing to hear the plan from Alaric and Jeremy rather than him. Caroline is there too, and every time Elena gets to see her like this, talking death and vampire politics, she's once again reminded that Caroline isn't the human girl she once knew.  
  
It's very simple. They kill everyone who stands in their way. She's heard worse, she supposes.  
  
++  
  
She gets to drive the car, much to her disgust, and she tells them that they either let her help or she'll walk in anyway. Alaric curses and hands her some vervain darts, and Jeremy gives her his stake. Caroline tries to keep everything light, but it doesn't really work. Damon refuses to acknowledge her. She ignores him.  
  
They bust in, Alaric first with an automatic stake gun, Jeremy close behind with the same weapon and then Caroline. There's maybe ten of the opposition, foul-playing and a little smarter than Alaric had given them credit for. Jeremy gets backhanded after he kills one, and he's sent a good six feet into a wall and knocked unconscious. He's basically a buffet. Elena just doesn't get there in time.  
  
Damon does.  
  
He comes in, face set, and puts his fist straight through the vampire's chest. The vampire drops at Jeremy's still feet. It seems the addition of Damon Salvatore wasn't quite what they were expecting. They fight well, Elena thinks detachedly, as one manages to get a hand around Alaric's arm. She runs forward and jabs a vervain dart into his side. Alaric finishes him off. Caroline is wrestling with a heavy set woman, teeth bared and snarling. The woman scrapes her hand down Caroline's cheek drawing blood, but it's enough to anger the blonde into snapping her neck.  
  
Damon is somewhere ahead in the old warehouse, and they follow the sound of cries and crunching bone to find him, Alaric hauling Jeremy along with him. He's slowly becoming conscious, and Alaric passes him off to Elena as they get closer. Caroline leads them down aisles of boxes and shelves, and finally to where Damon is trying to play the lone ranger card again, currently juggling two vampires with stakes. Stefan is strung up just beyond them, bleeding from multiple chest wounds and half-conscious. Alaric and Caroline take to the rest of the vampire that come out of nowhere (as they do) and Elena and Jeremy work on getting around them and to Stefan.  
  
Eventually, she's got her back to the fight as Jeremy cuts the ropes, and Stefan's weight falls on her. (In the background she hears Damon's angry yell of, 'I fucking knew it, you piece of _shit_ \-- maybe you _were_ related to the Fells -- Council my _ass_ ,' and then the sickening crack of a neck.  
  
She's holding Stefan up and he's got his teeth in her wrist when a hand grabs her hair and she's yanked backwards. Stefan's teeth tear through muscle and tendons and cartilage, and she screams. She flails, even as she is dragged across the cement, and then she's pulled straight to her feet, stars in her eyes. She's slammed back down again, and the feel of her head hitting the concrete is something she'll remember for a long time.  
  
There's this strange roaring in her ears as she blinks through her blurry vision. She feels hands lift her, and Caroline sits behind her, propping her up. From there, all Elena sees is Damon's mouth dripping red as he rips apart another vampire, and Stefan with his fist halfway through another's chest. Then she blacks out.  
  
++  
  
No one really tells her what happened after that, except she wakes up in Damon's bed with Stefan beside her, stroking her hair. She breathes a sigh of relief and buries her face into his chest, letting the tears fall. A while later she hears Damon enter, and when he settles into the bed behind her she lets her head rest back on his shoulder. Shuffling through the sheets, she manages to find both their hands and squeeze tight. She doesn't give second thought to how her wrist is healed, or how her head doesn't have a golf-ball sized bump on it, but both brothers squeeze her hands back just a little tighter.  
  
In her ear, Damon mumbles, "I told you that guy on the council was sneaky."  
  
She breathes in deep, smiling. "We're okay."  
  
++  
  
There are days when life is easy, when Jenna doesn't continue to ring Elena every five minutes because she hasn't replied to her text, she knows the vampire brothers her niece is seeing will keep her safe. When Jeremy comes top in his history class, when no werewolves save for Tyler are running around, when life is just simply easy.  
  
These are the days Elena loves to live for, when it's just her and her boys between the sheets, rolling around as they fight for the remote. (They decided that television in the lounge wasn't acceptable, there should be one in Damon's room also. Plasma, 52 inch.) They end up watching _Infomercials_ because Damon throws the remote across the room, claiming that if he can't watch _'Deathproof'_ then they won't watch anything at all. Stefan sighs and rolls his eyes, pushing the sheets back to get the remote, and Elena pulls him back down for a kiss before he goes.  
  
It's really no help, because as soon as he gets back into bed Damon asks, "what are we watching?" and Elena replies, "that Benjamin Button film?" and he grabs the remote from Stefan and tosses it across the room again. He nuzzles down into Elena's neck and mumbles, "I can think of better things to do."  
  
Elena protests, but then Stefan is matching his brother's movements and saying, "for once, I kind of agree with Damon." (Damon grumbles, 'for once?!')  
  
All she can do is laugh.  
  
++  
  
Her fingers curl diligently around Damon's hip as he turns towards her, propped up on his side. His smile makes her smile. Behind her, Stefan moves closer, pressing soft lips to her shoulder blade, tracing the shape of bone beneath skin like a trail map. Damon lets his hand linger near her ribcage before trailing up, fingers playing with the long, loose tendrils of hair that fall over her shoulder. She moves her head to feel his hand on her cheek. Stefan rests his hand on her waist, drags his lips lightly up to her neck, kisses the sensitive skin there. Her eyes flutter closed.  
  
This is home. Here between the Salvatore brothers who fought and died for love, who would fight and die for it again.  
  
For her.


End file.
